People affected with new COVID-19 strain, may develop immunity
South African scientists have found people infected with the new strain of COVID-19 potentially have developed some immunity against the variant and other lineages.
Science and Innovation Minister, Blade Nzimande said this during a webinar on the latest scientific results on the variant first identified in South Africa.
He says scientists from UKZN's Krisp, the NICD, the Africa Health Research Institute and others, used a research programme with the live virus.
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Nzimande says this will contribute immensely to vaccine development.
"The 501YV2 variant is able to generate immune responses with, no found out by our scientists, that neutralises itself and other SARS-CoV-2 lineages."
"What this means amongst other things is that vaccines now that are based on dealing or likely to generate neutralised agents against the current variant can actually be developed given these findings."
